How the Black Women Fall in Love
by bredalot
Summary: The love stories of four women who share nothing but a name.
1. Black

**Disclaimer: So not mine.**

_A/N: I have a bit of an obsession with the Black women, so here's my take on their loves. So far I have four planned: Bellatrix, Narcissa, Andromeda, and Nymphadora (Tonks!), and a different color to go with each. One more thing: this is my first attempt at a chaptered fic, and I have a commitment problem, so reviews will be my inspiration to get this finished. (And yes, that is my desperate plea for reviews.) I hope you like it!_

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Her life was full of black. It was her hair, her eyes, her clothes (with green and silver), her name. She was proud of it, as she'd been taught to be. Bellatrix Black was a proud name, and Bellatrix Black was a proud women. She was born Black, and she loved it, and she vowed she would remain so . . .

. . . until the day she married Rodolphus Lestrange. Suddenly, Black was second to Lestrange, and she hated it. She hated him for it, for taking herself from her. Bellatrix had always identified herself as Black, and she didn't know how to be Not Black, and she hated her husband for not being Black. She was barely out of school when she married him, a good Pureblood Slytherin boy (man, she supposes, but really boy) whom her parents had arranged for her. She didn't have to marry him, not really; even the Purebloods, who clung so fervently to the old ways, had given that practice up years before. But she didn't see an alternative: there was no reason not to marry him, other than the fact that he wasn't Black, and she knew she wouldn't love anyone. She wasn't the loving kind; she doesn't know when she learned that, but it's always seemed a part of her, and she gave up long ago on any kind of hope she might once have had for love.

So on her wedding day, she wore a gown of silver that she thought made her look sick (and what's more, Narcissa and even Andromeda did, too) but on which her mother insisted. She wore her magnificently Black black hair down around her shoulders, the last bit of enjoyment she could pull from being Black, and to show everyone who she truly was. She did not smile, but neither did her groom. It was a very Black wedding.

A year later, she drifted into a group of her old classmates, older Slytherins whom she'd known (and who had respected her), and those even older whom she had not known before. They did not call her Lestrange. They did not call her Black, but they did not call her Lestrange. They called her Bellatrix, and there was a certain ring in their voices when they did. Her classmates were afraid of her, in that lovely cowering groveling way people fear those from whom they want something. The others respected her, for she had the ancient Black power and the Black hair and the Black eyes and she terrified those around her. (She thought that the fact that she was slowly going mad might have something to do with it, but perhaps they did not know.) And it was here that she fell in love.

It was silly, really. Ridiculous. Ironic. That she should love Him, who was even more incapable of love than she was. She knew He could not love her, but she loved Him anyway, and He rewarded that. He gave her power, and she devoured it, and she drove herself ever closer to Him. Rodolphus didn't care (if he even knew), except in the slinking jealous fearful way the others had as well. But she continued to feed off His power, and the more she fed the more she loved, and the more she loved the more He told. She was only nineteen when she joined, twenty when she fell in love, and twenty-one when He took her into His confidence. She was His second-in-command (as much as a twenty-one year old girl in love with Him could be), and He knew He could trust her, because He knew her. He knew that the more He told her, the less she'd want to betray Him, and that was, perhaps, His own sort of coldly calculating love. And she took whatever she could get, because she was in love.

She knew that it was doomed, would be even if she were not married (even though her marriage was a joke and a lie), because of Him. He could not love her, would not love her, could not, would not even try. And her love was Black, as she was Black, as her name and her life had always been Black. And she loved the Blackness.

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_So, there you have it: Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Next up: Narcissa Black Malfoy._


	2. Silver

_A/N: There will be no disclaimer in each chapter here; it's obviously not mine and really, that gets annoying. Here's Narcissa. She was hard for me to write; Bellatrix was easier because she's so powerful (and mad), but Narcissa and her lover are so cold. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but I don't think I'll ever be, so here's a Halloween present for you all. Hope you like it! Also, as a special treat (heh), you will get virtual cookies if you catch the reference to a very well-known fanfic in here. _

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Narcissa was always, always cold. The wet stony Slytherin dungeons did not help, but she loved them anyway. She was used to the cold and the stone; that was where she'd grown up. It was the heart of luxury, and she loved it. Of course she did.

She knew that she was beautiful. (She did not know that later in life she would cling to that with all she had, because it would be all she had.) She had magnificent silver-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes (which she'd been a little offended and scared by until she actually saw the beauty of blue ice), the only set in a family of Black. She didn't understand where it came from, and she didn't quite understand how to use it (not at twelve), but she did understand that it was important. And she understood that Bella had a very different sort of beauty and Andromeda another sort altogether, but that hers was the most distinct. And she liked that. And sometimes, her cold beauty could make up for her cold body, and it was at those times that others found her most insufferable but that she was the happiest. So as she grew older, she learned to relish and to use her beauty, and to ignore the fact that she was cold.

In her fourth year, she met Lucius Malfoy. She didn't know how she hadn't met him before, since he was in her House and only a year older than her, but there it was. And she could tell from the very beginning that he was just as cold as she was. It wasn't the fact that he dressed warmly (because he didn't; silver and silk can't make anyone warm, and Narcissa knew that very well) or that he shivered (he was too proud to shiver); it was that she recognized in him the very same qualities she saw in herself. He was beautiful, just as she was, and while she wanted that to be less important she knew how much it really mattered. Especially to him. Because he used his beauty the same way she used hers: to protect himself. He was Wizarding aristocracy, noble and strong and brittle, and the beauty kept the brittleness away. And Narcissa could tell, even if no one else could, because that was who she was.

She'd grown up in darkness, the shining light in a family of Black. And people could talk about the strength and beauty of the light, but one candle in the dark is so fragile it can be extinguished in a single breath. And Narcissa lived in fear of that breath, surrounded by so much mad strength: it could be her mother, her aunt, Bella, Andromeda, even her little cousin Sirius who was even more of a spitfire than Bella. She shielded herself with her beauty, fighting to keep the little bit of light alive, because she didn't want to be lost to the madness. And with a name meaning "light," how could she help but fall for him?

She couldn't call him nice, but she couldn't call him mean. He was intelligent, clever, ambitious, even admirable, but so cold. But she couldn't care, because she was used to being cold, and he would know how to keep her sane. He had kept himself sane, after all.

She supposes that if she gets right to the core of it, she'll find that she wants someone to protect her. But she doesn't want to find that: she's a Black, after all, and Blacks don't need anyone. So she takes Lucius, and she loves him, and she thinks he loves her, and she hopes hopes _hopes_ that he will be enough, and she gets used to the cold, because the Malfoy house is just like the Black house, and she fears that she will be cold for the rest of her life.

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_And that's Narcissa Black Malfoy. Next up: Andromeda Black Tonks, whom I LOVE despite vitually no canon existence. I also currently have no idea (or rather, too many ideas) of what to do for her, so it may be a while before that, but I promise it'll come because I really want to get to Nymphadora (whom, by the way, I am currently dressed as - it's Halloween, after all!)_


	3. Red

_A/N: Ok, so Andromeda was really hard for me to write, and I kept putting her off. Here's my attempt. I realize the transition is a bit sudden, because I have so many different conflicting ideas of Andromeda in my head and it was hard for me to reconcile them. Finally I gave up on trying to fix it and decided to post it. Anyway, I hope you like this.

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She's always felt guilty about it, but Andromeda loved loved _loved_ the color red. She wasn't supposed to; red was for Gryffindor and blind courage and blood traitors, and she's known that forever. And she doesn't want to like red, because she is a good and true Slytherin, but it's warm and fiery and strong and bold and beautiful and she can't help herself. She dresses herself in green and black and silver, hoping that the color will seep through to her soul and change the redness, and there wasn't really much doubt at her Sorting (she wanted to be Slytherin, she was a Black, she had all the qualities of a Slytherin, even the ones she didn't like – there was no doubt of where she'd go), and she avoided the Gryffindors (Merlin, some of them were annoying), but still. She liked the color red, and she liked Gryffindor Tower (she'd never been inside, but she could picture it, red wall hangings and red sofas and red carpets, all bathed in the warm glow of a flickering red fire – even the Slytherin fire was silver-and-green), and she did (she admitted) like the passion of the Gryffindors. Not that the Slytherins couldn't be passionate – she has been to a Quidditch game. But there was a warmth and fire to Gryffindor passion that she loved.

When she met Ted Tonks, she thought he was a Ravenclaw. She was in the library, studying frantically for an exam the next day. She had such trouble with astronomy; she always laughed at the irony (she always remembered the stories behind the names much better than the stars themselves). But Ted Tonks was smart, and helped her learn the stars, and made her laugh, and shared his name with no constellation. He was a sort of freedom, a bit of lively joking warmth, with a way of saying her name that made it sound less star-like and more real and perhaps even brighter than Black. Andromeda. She remembers her namesake's story well – the chained princess left to the sea-monster. Sometimes, late at night when she's lying in bed wishing for red hangings above her head and perhaps a less Black quality to the darkness around her, she can picture Ted as a sort of Perseus (and she ignores that the sea-monster reminds her of Slytherin's snake-sigil). But she doesn't want him to be her escape – she wants to free herself. If that's even what she wants (and she's no longer entirely sure).

So she makes friends with Ted, and finds out that he's really a Gryffindor, and drives him crazy with her conflicting moods, and knows it. But she can't help it – she really likes him, but she's afraid that she's starting to depend on him too much. She decides that she will color her own life red, and when she no longer wishes for red everywhere, then she will see if it is truly Ted she likes or the fire and warmth and _redness_ in him. So she eats red foods and buys bottles of red ink to doodle with and wears red underwear (because the touch of red against her skin makes her feel alive). And one night, she realizes that her bed curtains are green and the darkness is merely dark and that she still dreams of Ted, but that he's no longer Perseus come to set her free. He is merely Ted, tall and floppy-haired and funny and really truly passionate. And the next day she finds him in the corridors and drags him to the library and kisses him and surprises herself (she'd only wanted to talk to him, see him again). And he kisses back.

And years later, when Andromeda is giving her baby daughter an impossible name in the tradition of the Blacks (but not a star-name, because baby Nymphadora with Ted's snub nose is too bright and lively to be doomed to the night sky) and laying her down in a red-swathed crib, she realizes that Ted was her Perseus. He loosed her chains, but she climbed out of them herself.

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_And that, my friends, is Andromeda. Next up is Nymphadora, who should be easier, as she has a definite canon love story. I just hope I can get it right!_


	4. Pink

_A/N: Here, my friends, is Nymphadora. She's the last one, since we don't know any other Black women. I finished this in a hurry last night, trying to get it up for my birthday (and yeah, it was yesterday so I kind of missed it, but I did finish it then!). It's a bit of all over the place, but so is Tonks. Hope you like it, and thanks for reading all the way through my first chaptered fic!

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Nymphadora (as everyone knows) hates her name. But in Greek mythology, it would mean "gift of the nymphs", and everyone knows the Romans stole their mythology from the Greeks, and he is named after one of the founders of Rome.

She feels about twelve, doing this. Like a first-year with a crush. (And it's not like she needs any help feeling younger – Merlin, she's spent the past two months trying to convince him she's not too young!) But she doesn't know what else to do. He won't let her close to him, so she uses anything she possibly can to get there.

No one has ever taken her seriously. She stumbles through life with pink hair and a loud laugh and a ridiculous sense of humor, and no one can take that seriously. They forget that she's a Black, that behind the pink lies a consuming darkness, that she goes by her last name to cover up her first. She loves that he does take her seriously, that her protests about her name are heard with good humor while actually being acknowledged, that he sees the Auror as well as the klutz. It's wonderful, to be so respected by the first man she has both respected and loved. And that's why it's so odd that he doesn't believe in her love.

She expects that no one else will believe her when she says she's in love, because she's the sort of girl who trips from crush to crush but never has anything serious. She's the kind of girl who falls for a good-looking guy if he even so much as looks at her. But Remus isn't her type; he's smart and strong and graying and cursed, and by all rights she ought to be hunting him down instead of falling for him. She's always gone for the athletic wild Auror type; she had the biggest crush on Bill Weasley in school (also Charlie, who was in her year and her best friend, which, come to think of it, was probably the reason she knew Bill at all). But anyway, that's not Remus, which you would think would prove to anyone who knows her that she's serious about this. And that's how _she_ knows it's serious; since she's had so many crushes, she can tell that this is different. And she's so glad it is, because he listens to her and respects her and helps her and cares about her (even if she can't make him care _for_ her). And she barely does all that for herself; part of the reason no one else takes her seriously is that she doesn't. She likes not taking herself seriously – it keeps her as Tonks instead of Moody. She likes having pink hair and wearing ridiculously bright clothes and having people look at her askance when they find out she's an Auror. She even kind of likes breaking things. She wishes she didn't, but since she does, she might as well enjoy it. She's a fierce optimist, and if she weren't, she would've given up hope long ago. She probably never would've had any, would've simply admired him from a distance and pretended she didn't love him more than she'd ever loved anyone before. But she defies her Black heritage by being optimistic, and she embraces it by being deathly stubborn.

So she keeps her hope, and she holds on, and she tells him over and over and over that she loves him. And it's easier to keep hope because her repeated avowals of love don't make him avoid her – when she's tired or dismal after a hard watch, he'll comfort her, and when she needs a friend most, he's the first one there. And she and Remus and Sirius have had some very fun bull sessions in front of the fire with a bottle of Firewhiskey, and she's noticed that when he's drunk he looks at her more. So she amuses herself by subtly changing her hair shade until suddenly it's blue and he hasn't noticed how it got there (it helps that he's drunk). And Sirius laughs at him, and at her, and she knows that Sirius knows she's in love and that he believes in it. She knew there was a reason he was her favorite cousin, a reason why she missed him against her better judgment all those years when he was in Azkaban. And she's glad Remus is his friend, because they are both desperately tragic men in need of a friend, and they are so different that sometimes she wonders how they don't kill each other, but they don't. And so she loves watching them, and she loves that they love each other, and she loves each of them. And really, that was part of the reason she fell for Remus in the first place. It wasn't that he caught her the first time she fell over the troll's leg umbrella stand when he didn't even know her, or that he just smiled good-naturedly when she apologized profusely; it wasn't that he didn't even blink when Moody introduced her as an Auror and a Metamorphmagus and a Black, or that he could relate to all of those (she's heard about his stint as Defense professor, and his lycanthropy, and of course his friendship with _the_ Black of the age); it wasn't that he encouraged her overwhelming brightness while providing a welcome respite from it, or that they seemed to get along better than anyone else in the Order, compensating for each other and balancing their strengths and weaknesses. Well, actually, it was all of that (she can lie easily to anyone else, but she's never been able to lie to herself). She just didn't realize it until she first saw Remus and Sirius drunk and laughing together and felt that great surge of pride and happiness for both of them, that they'd defied all odds against them to become such good (great) men; knowing she'd always loved Sirius, she could realize she loved Remus. And knowing that, she realized that there was something different there, that she loved Sirius like a brother but Remus like . . . well, like a friend and a brother and a boyfriend combined. And that's what made it real.

So now she keeps telling him that she loves him, and keeps arguing against his protests (he is _not_ too old), and keeps hoping he'll change his mind. And now everyone knows, and Molly Weasley beams whenever she sees them together, and Bill laughs at her like a friend would, and Dumbledore doesn't say anything but his eyes twinkle (she knows Dumbledore and Molly agree with her, that Remus needs someone to love him after all he's been through, and that he's not too old or too poor or too dangerous, not for an Auror; she's not so sure about Molly, but she knows that Dumbledore takes her seriously – he's always been able to see right through her). And she's sure that someday, after the war, maybe, or when she hits thirty and he finally realizes that she really is grown up, he'll realize that he can let himself love her. But it's hard, so hard, to wait, especially knowing that maybe they won't come through this war, and she can feel herself fraying at the edges, so she clings ever more strongly to the pink inside her so as to avoid falling into the Black.


End file.
